ABSTRACT: This is an article of cross-cultural comparison and contrast. It focuses on Japan, Taiwan, France, Germany, the USA, and the Arab world—all places I have worked in and lived in over the past 3 decades. The focus of comparison is on the concepts of “learned helplessness”. I begin by looking at the Japanese concept of “Shoganai”.

THE U.S.A. : Stoicism (Positivism)It was such a both a positivist and a stoic world-view that Americans of the 19th century were often immersed in. For example, in both the 19th and 20th century Thomas Alva Edison told his friends and followers, “Where there is a will, there is a way.”
This was a form of positivism to be sure, but it was positivism that called for hard work and serious analyses of our state of existence and application of better forms of education and research here on earth. Edison’s philosophy was not a run-away stoicism, i.e. out to destroy American identity dating to the founding fathers. Rather, it was a positivism with a more responsible and partial existential twist that Edison was offering up to would-be adherents, developers, dreamers, and scientists. (In short, it was not Horatio Algiers tale that Edison called for. Neither was it a call to carry on following an ignorant man’s path—i.e. fighting our parents wars generation after generation. On the other hand, Edison might have had some fascist tendencies which were common in that same era.)
Many Americans have thought similarly to Edison over the centuries. This “we can do it—if we have a will—we will find a way” worldview was also what I grew up thinking was a possible for me, my generation and my world—let us say 3, 4 or 5 decades ago. In other words, I was raised in the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s to believe that of there would always be a world of possibilities for my generation—as long as we kept ourselves from blowing up the world first. But even then, we had a choice to act or to refrain from taking the bull (or life) by-the-horns.
Note that this belief in “we can do it” resurfaced recently in the Barack Obama campaign slogan of 2008; “Yes, we can.” However, it has since been taken over once again by patriotic stoicism, which lacks thoughtful historical, social and political-economic analyses and common sense, which Edison demanded in his day–and which we should demand in this 21st Century, too.http://dsaid.blogspot.com/2009/08/philosophy-jean-paul-sartre-man-is.html
Over the most recent three decades of my observing my own society, i.e. the USA (mostly from abroad but also while living there), I have come to understand that there is a stoicism related to learned helplessness that is currently far-too-deeply-ingrained in modern America. This learned helplessness was what Thomas Dewey and other great educators have warned Americans about when they have become to proud of stoic tradition or too-enamored by positivist rhetoric (i.e. the kind that leads to fascism and other very nasty ‘isms”), which is every bit as vibrant and active in North America as it has been in Japan under the metaphorical world view of “shoganai”—or a pervasive “such is life” attitude. Worse still, American form of “shoganai” is embedded in the worst sort of self-destructive stoicism which once led Japanese soldiers in WWII to fight to the bitter end on island-after-island, even though their cause and war were obviously hopelessly lost.
Meanwhile, America in 2011-2012 is a country that continually trains too many of its young people to go off and fight endless foreign wars –and join the military to pay off outrageous university debts and help out bottomless pits of petroleum firms and defense contractors (siphoning off our savings as well as expunging the lives along with the ways of life which might have otherwise been provided by the best-and-the-brightest generation of young people which are stuck in American forms of “shoganai” ). In short, there is a certain form of American stoicism which is taught by society–and by thoughtless parents and ruthless politicians–to the USA offspring—and this has been going on each generation since WWII.
This is war-hungry “stoicism’ is every bit as strong and destructive as the “stoicism” the Japanese have savored for centuries, i.e. under the ingrained notions of “shoganai”. Please recall here that “[t]he word stoic has remained in the [English] language [for at least a millennium] and defines a person who accepts life’s slings and arrows without whining about it.” It is similar to shoganai and remains part-and-parcel of American identity and philosophy today—even though many of us were raised to think it cannot happen here—in our free thinking, democratic, and freedom seeking land. As a lifelong educator, I am starting my 4th decade of fighting this very “really Unamerican” stoicism. This stoicism has continuously created more and more learned helplessness—all of my adult life—in America and in other corners of the globe [which I will refer to in Part 2 of this writing].
Over the years, I have been reading constantly that stoicism is what “real Americans” in the 21st Century continue to inaccurately claim has been the fabric of American society since the times of our Founding Fathers. Nonsense, such stoicism has, in fact only been dominantly functioning in the USA in its current military-industrial-complex-committed form for approximately 70 years, i.e. since the Hitler and WWII era..
Read the following example of a supposed-American-Patriot blog–as we continue to march into this new century! E.g. this particular stoic American patriot writes, “We desperately need a big dose of American stoicism … don’t you think?”
He continues, “It is a real shame that fear of the violence perpetrated by Islamic radicals can so easily cause some Americans to drop their principles and to ‘cut and run’ … forgetting the causes of liberty and freedom many past Americans selflessly fought and died for.”
Moreover, this same American stoic continues (ad nauseam), “Our liberal/socialist friends try to impress our more gullible American citizens … [i.e.] sounding so sophisticated and intelligent when they wax philosophically about our Islamic brothers and sisters, or …. our gay brothers and sisters, or … about how men should be ‘nice guys shouldn’t be so masculine … and wouldn’t it be just so much better if we were all so ‘metro-sexual.’” [Here, I originally assumed by ‘metro-sexual’ that this patriotic American stoic implies “multicultural”, i.e. the educational field which is my speicalty—but in actuality, the so-called patriot was playing PC –conservatives play the PC game too– game of misleading the reader with his anti-homosexual jargon.]http://patriotwarrior.org/2008/04/01/how-about-a-little-american-stoicism/
In short, while the signs of the times around us call Americans back from the brink of the worst forms of overt stoicism fascist-oriented postivism, the country [the USA], as a whole, is not “looking [busily y]for alternative ideologies with which to equip ourselves more adequately for hard times.” Barbara Ehrenreich, in her book, Bright-Sided, offered “a damning indictment of the [particular] ideology of positive thinking, which she sees as the fundamental flaw in American life.”
Ehrenreich “suggests that the problem of relentless positive thinking, and the corresponding refusal to acknowledge reality, is largely responsible for all kinds of social ills, including our current financial mess. She argues that only if we begin to recognize hard facts–such as the presence in our society of poverty, inequality, unemployment, and debt, as well as cancers that can kill us no matter how much pink we wear–will we get sufficiently angry about these things to fight for a cure.” I am not sure weather Ehrenbach is referring to the ideologies of theKoch Brothers (or there evolved sense of John Birch Society Doctrine), but in any case, any sort of positivism or stoicism forces in the USA which lead Americans and their society/government to appropriate Japanese-style “shoganai” identities (or out-of-control stoicism as a national sense of identity) in this new millennium needs to be hijacked and kicked out of the country.

NOTE: In Part 2 of this piece I will look at this doctrine of “shoganai” (or misguided and illogical stoic ideology) and how it plays a role currently in some parts of Europe and the Middle East (still) in the 21st Century.

6 Responses to I NEVER CAN SAY “GOOD-BYE” to SHOGANAI (After all)–Part 1

Of course we need a positive attitude and a stoic approach to life at times, but it needs to be mixed with study, research, planning, reflection, learning, relearning, taking time out, listening to others, and working through things to achieve an authentic maturity.

Learning such expressions is key not only to picking up the local language, but also to grasping different belief systems and ways of seeing the world.

Think of these expressions as ways to get inside of a particular worldview, and to show the locals that you’ve got an awareness of their cultural values.

Japan photo by tiseb
1. Shoganai (しょうがない), Japan

“It can’t be helped.” Japan is for the most part a very non-confrontational culture. Shoganai epitomizes this tendency because by encouraging people not to complain or try to “fight the power”.

Circumstances can’t be changed, so why get angry or try to avoid the unavoidable?

It’s too hot and you have walk 10 km to the nearest train station? Your boss asks you to work an extra four hours that evening?

Just accept it and move on: shoganai.

2. Mai pen rai (ไม่เป็นไร), Thailand

Thailand photo by mckaysavage
“Thailand is where no matter what happens, you say ‘mai pen rai.’ Never mind. Que sera, sera. Water off my back. And get on with your life.”

– Jerry Hopkins, Thailand Confidential

Whereas in Japan this “never mind” idea encourages one to endure hardships, in Thailand, it implies that life should be lived at a relaxed pace.

This could not be more evident in the idea of “Thai time”: several days late for a gathering of friends? Mai pen rai; it’s no big deal, we can always put things off for another day, a week, a month.

3. Sempre tem jeito, Brazil

“…there’s always a way. Don’t drive yourself crazy over stuff now, there’s always a way to work it out in the end.”

– Thomas Kohstamm, Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?

4. Pura vida, Costa Rica

Costa Rica photo by lulumon athletica
If you’ve been reading up on the exploits of one frozen banana stand owner, you should understand the idea of enjoying life in leisurely manner in Costa Rica, pura vida!

Literally meaning “pure life”, the saying is often used as a handy catch phrase and a way of offering greetings and farewells.

5. C’est la vie, France

Apparently the French and Japanese think very much alike in this respect. C’est la vie is often used to describe situations beyond someone’s control in a way of saying “that’s life” or “what can you do?”

6. Insha’allah, Arab nations

“In Egypt, it is an expression that is relied on so utterly, repeated so continually and universally – invoked on the quiet, dusty paths of rural villages and on the crowded streets of Cairo alike – that it is a part of our national character.

For Egyptian Muslims (and many Christians, too), insha’allah is the constant reminder that human beings are not in control. It is funny, but also somewhat telling, that most foreigners and visitors to Egypt believe it means ‘never.’”

– Jehan Sadat, My Hope for Peace

7. No worries, Australia and New Zealand

Although the phrase “sweet as” might be just as strong a contender in Kiwi territory, no worries is probably the most culturally relevant phrase in Australia and New Zealand.

The saying expresses a laid-back approach to life. No worries, mate.

8. Huevos, Mexico

Our own Sarah Menkedick offers her experience in Mexico with the variations on huevos (eggs):

“Que hueva.”

Imagine you are Jorge, it is Sunday morning, and you are snug in bed with the sun pouring down on you. Then your peppy girlfriend and her German Shepherd come racing into the room, jump on the bed, and shout/bark “Come running with me!!”

Your response would be: “Que hueva.”

Huevo photo by bpheonix
In case the context didn’t help, “hueva” here means something like boring/tedious/dull/dreadful. You could also translate it more or less directly as “how laziness-inducing.”

“Que huevon/huevona.” This is that guy with his arm elbow-deep in the Ruffles and his gut pouring over the edge of his jeans who shouts “yeah, I’ll get around to it later honey, I’m watching the Simpsons!” The Lazy Egg.

Huevona is the feminine form.

This is what you try to pull on your friends when they refuse to walk the dog with you or trek it across town to catch a bus to see a movie.

“Que huevon!” you say with mock indignation. It rarely works, but it’s fun to call someone a lazy egg anyway.

– Huevos a la Mexicana

9. Maningue Nice, Mozambique

Mozambique photo by JenvanW
A cross between a purely national term and a flair of English, maningue nice means “very nice” and is the closest thing to a slogan in Mozambique. Scream it from the tallest buildings whenever fortune favors you.

10. Bahala Na, Philippines

Come What May.

“This is the term that is very often used when all else fails, when you have done all you could, it doesn’t matter
because fate will take over. Sort of a comfort in a sense, that wills the Filipino, that gives them a sort of perseverance.”

Source: tingog.com

A Cross Cultural Theme

When I started researching these expressions, I was expecting to find similarities based on geography: patterns in Asia, South America, Western Europe, etc.

I was surprised, however, to find a cross-cultural theme; many of these phrases are used in response to circumstances beyond people’s control.

How each culture is epitomized in these terms is indicative of how they react to unfortunate or unavoidable events.

The Japanese and French suck it up; the Thais, Kiwis, Aussies, and others shrug it off; Arabs put the responsibility to a higher power.